


drive on

by enuzv



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27436351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enuzv/pseuds/enuzv
Summary: If you write something on your skin, it will show up on your soulmate’s skin as well. Wong Kunhang, however, is never one to follow the rules.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 38
Kudos: 363
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	drive on

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from Drive On - NIKI.

The world works in a lot of its mysterious ways, but one thing remains a constant since the first seconds of its spin: if you write something on your skin, it will show up on your soulmate’s skin as well. No one really knows how or why things happen specifically that way, it just _happens_. A general conscience, passed on from generations to generations.

The rule itself has some exceptions, like how names and addresses will not be shown even the ones written in codes, but the basic concept is simple enough for 7-year-old Wong Kunhang to understand when his mother came to his room to tell him a story before bed. Unlike the stories about knights and dragons like the previous nights, his mother tells him about a personal secret of hers: she knew who her soulmate was because of the math formulas written on her skin on the first day of finals week and met his father after the exam ended, and in his mother’s words, then they live happily ever after.

“Someday, you will find your soulmate, too.” His mother says, her hand cards through Kunhang’s hair softly, lulling him to sleep. Even at this age, Kunhang finds it hard to believe.

“But, what if they hate strawberry ice cream? I love strawberry ice cream.” He furrows his brows and grasps his blanket close to him, looking at his mother with curious and confused eyes. “What if I don’t like them?”

Her smile is patient, understanding. “They are destined for you, Kunhang. Of course you’ll grow to love them.”

The answer doesn’t satisfy him, and his mother knows it. She sees the doubt, the distrust, and leans forward to caress his cheek. “And when the time comes, you’ll grow to let them love you, too.”

Her whisper is full of promises. He doesn’t understand what it means, but the night ends with a kiss on the forehead and a promise of another tale tomorrow. After the room goes dark, Kunhang buries his face deep into the sheets to force himself to sleep, but the question remains.

_“What if I don’t?”_

Kunhang receives a custom black pen for his seventeenth birthday. The pen is beautiful and sleek, the surface covered with intricate details that feels soft to the touch. This has become a tradition in his family. His sisters had received the same gift on their seventeenth birthday and they had used it regularly to write or draw on their skin, their faces lit up with excitement and hope. They only wrote mundane things like grocery lists or drew some mindless doodles, but somehow all of his sisters have found their soulmates, and now it’s his turn.

“Write something nice on your skin.” His oldest sister says with a big grin when his parents place the long box beside the basket of his half-eaten _shoutao_ , and Kunhang gulps at the sentiment _._ “So, your soulmate knows you’realive.”

The laughter that erupts afterwards does not help. Kunhang wants to tell them he’s happy with himself, he wants to tell them that he wants to live a simple and independent life, but all the words he wants to say settles heavily in his tongue, the lotus seed filling in his mouth turns bitter.

 _You’ll grow to love them_ , his mother had said. _You’ll grow to let them love you, too_. No matter how he tries to look at it, even ten years after the first night his mother told him about how soulmate works, the whole concept is irrational. What if he finds someone he loves, but they are not destined to be with him? Will he be forced to leave? Will they leave to find their soulmate? He doesn’t even know what his predetermined partner is like, and there is no guarantee that he will be able to love them after he knows who they are.

He thinks about his soulmate, sometimes. Whoever his soulmate is and wherever they are out there, he pities them. Kunhang knows his logic applies to them, too, and what if they find someone they love and it’s not him? Will they be forced to be with each other?

 _You’ll grow to love them._ Will they grow to love each other, or will they stay just because they’re soulmates? 

It’s fucked up. It’s selfish. 

The same night, 17-year-old Wong Kunhang tosses the pen into the trash, and swears to himself to never look back.

Kunhang is reminded that his soulmate actually exists for the first time in a party-slash-karaoke night in the middle of the summer.

It all started with an invitation for him and his friends. The party will be held at Dong Sicheng’s place, one of the seniors he’s close to, and Kunhang had no other choice but to go thanks to the endless nagging of his friends and the devastating result of his midterm tests. Architecture is hell, he’s barely passing and deep down he needs to get shit-faced drunk to forget about the whole thing. He knows the party is the perfect place to destress.

That night, in the middle of a “Never Have I Ever” session started by his group of friends, a pleasant heat spreads through his body for the first time. It starts on the skin of his inner arms, the warmth traveling to his whole body and his breathing becomes heavy. The noise of the party becomes all distorted, all he can hear is the slow beating of his own heart as the realization sinks in.

He knows what this means. 

He excuses himself to go to the bathroom, ignoring the look his friends send his way and the sound of protests that erupted after. He locks the door before he takes his t-shirt off, revealing the dark ink embedded in his inner arm in a form of a skewed, messy handwriting, and his world halts to a stop.

_Sometimes, there are times when I believe that everything has an end._

He needs a minute to process things. He stares at the almost-misspelled words (maybe his soulmate is the one getting shit-faced drunk, not him) and something in his head instantly clicks as he focuses on the faint background noise. His soulmate was writing it down, a song by Faye Wong that has been played on the abandoned karaoke machine in the living room for hours now, picked earlier because of the collective nostalgic memories it holds. 

This is hilarious, but also awful at the same time. _They could be anywhere in the world, right? This doesn’t mean anything._

He rubs at his skin to soothe the persistent burn, but the warmth in his heart lingers. Against his belief, 20-year-old Wong Kunhang sees himself smiling in the mirror.

His soulmate is here.

_Everything feels hazy_ , Kunhang says to himself as he sinks into the couch. Just yesterday, he took the last flight to Wenzhou to attend Sicheng’s wedding, and now he’s back in Hong Kong, sitting in the middle of an foreign apartment, eyes staring at a figure moving in the dark.

The figure itself is not unfamiliar. Wong Kunhang met Wong Yukhei on the same night he received the first message from his soulmate. From that point on, they got along pretty well. Yukhei was in the same year as him, majoring in Civil Engineering, and they shared so many similarities that they would hang out together a lot, just the two of them, outside of their respective circles of friends.

After graduating, they went back to their hometowns, and Kunhang never thought he would feel grateful over the fact that it only takes an hour to go from Hong Kong to Macau and vice versa. They visit each other from time to time, but these days the visits are longer and more frequent to the point where they decided to go to Wenzhou together, earning them some playful teasings from their friends and a very pointed gaze from the groom.

“So, you haven't met them?” Yukhei comes back from the fridge and passes a can of cold beer into his hands, cracking one open for himself before plopping down on the couch, arms placed around Kunhang’s shoulder with ease. Kunhang doesn’t mind the absence of space between them. “Your soulmate, I mean.”

He doesn’t know how their earlier conversation about their trip suddenly turns into _this_. His best guess, maybe it’s because of the question Sicheng had suddenly asked to both of them after the wedding, right before they departed to the airport. Kunhang knows Yukhei has been thinking about it since their flight back and he’s been telling him to forget about it, but he can’t deny that he’s been thinking about it, too.

_“Have you ever tried to find your soulmates?” Sicheng asks, and Kunhang has to suppress his urge to laugh while Yukhei chokes beside him._

_“Yes,” Yukhei answers at the same time with Kunhang’s “no”. Sicheng frowns, but he says nothing. There’s a frown in Kunhang’s face, too, but he also says nothing._

Ever since that karaoke night up until now, Kunhang knew his soulmate was close, but he didn’t actively try to find them. His soulmate still writes to him occasionally and in return he consciously chooses to ignore them. He still feels the same warmth he felt on that night every time a message blooms in his skin, but it’s easy to forget about them with Yukhei’s increasing presence in his life. Most of the time it’s just some weather updates or lyrics of some songs, and Kunhang doesn’t even bother to check.

( _He should. That would have made everything easier._ )

“Not yet.” The answer comes after a beat of silence, the can tumbling from one hand to another. Kunhang knows exactly what to say. “I don’t think I want to, but, yeah. Not yet.”

Yukhei barks a laugh, light and contagious. It sends a shiver down Kunhang’s spine as he takes notes of how _bright_ a person can be against this dimly lit room, how significant a stranger could be in his life just after a couple of years. His golden skin glows under the moonlight streaming from the window and Kunhang hopes that he gets to spend the rest of his life with this man in front of him, regardless of the ones this world has destined for them.

( _Not that it matters to them, of course. But, it would have been so much easier._ )

Kunhang rests his head on Yukhei’s shoulder and quietly asks back. “How about yours?”

“I don’t know.” Yukhei lifts the can onto his lips to take a gulp, turning wide eyes at him, clear and honest. “Dead, I think.”

The beer in his hands almost falls to the ground when Yukhei pulls him closer, and 23-year-old Wong Kunhang smiles into Yukhei’s lips when he murmurs, “good for us, then.”

“It’s you.” Yukhei shows up in front of his door at six in the morning, the skyline of Shanghai etched on top of his collarbone. Kunhang doesn’t need to see it to know.

And here’s how he knows: five hours ago, Kunhang was stuck in the middle of a delayed flight back home. He waited in the lounge, half asleep, before he saw one of the gift shops near the waiting room that sells a lot of souvenir pens similar to the one he got for his seventeenth birthday. He stared at the shop for hours, contemplating, before he decided to get one and walked to the nearest bathroom, the tip of the pen held in an awkward position above his chest. _He has never done this before_.

As he sketched the view, his mind went back to twelve days ago when Yukhei visited him, the last time he received a message from his soulmate. It was a badly-drawn little yacht in the middle of a turbulent sea on the center of his left wrist, and he decided to slap a watch over it and pushed his thoughts aside. He completely forgot about it the moment he saw Yukhei at the ferry terminal, but what he saw that day as Yukhei took his hand to bring him to their favorite noodle place in the city will forever be imprinted in his mind.

The same little drawing was inked on Yukhei’s wrist, and he could physically feel himself losing his mind.

( _He thought about their conversation back then, the sadness Yukhei tried to hide. He really should have acted sooner._ )

Kunhang has too many things to say, too many things to explain, so he laughs it off. “How did you get here? Is there any ferry from Hong Kong this early?”

The taller man stares at him with disbelief and asks through gritted teeth. “Did you plan this?”

The answer comes easy this time. “No, but I’ve always wanted it to be you.”

“I’ve written for you.” Yukhei takes a step forward, his voice trembling. “All I got was years of silence.”

“I’m sorry.” Two words, and Kunhang hopes Yukhei gets it. _I’m sorry I was a coward. I’m sorry I kept you waiting._

“Why?”

Kunhang thinks back to the 7-year-old him, and then to the 17-year-old him. He thinks back to the confusion, the anger, and the black pen tossed into the trash on his birthday. He still stands by what he thought, the rule is fucked up, people are not obliged to be with someone just because they are soulmates, but now, he knows better.

Now, he lets himself fall and be selfish.

“I wanted to be sure with myself,” Kunhang leans on the doorframe with arms crossed, eyes closed, “I wanted to make sure I’m staying because I want to, not because I have to.”

He thinks back to the 20-year-old him, the warm summer night and the misspelled Faye Wong song in his inner arm, and he thinks back to the body heat he shared with 23-year-old Yukhei in a dark apartment in the heart of Hong Kong.

 _You’ll grow to love them_ , his mother’s voice echoes in his head, and for once, he admits she was right.

“And, now?”

Yukhei sounds terrified, and Kunhang understands it all too well. He is terrified, too, but love allows people to be fearless, to do the right thing, and Kunhang is more than willing to take a leap of faith for them. He wraps his fingers around Yukhei’s hand, gently rubbing circles on it with his thumbs.

He finally understands after eighteen years. Finally. _You’ll grow to let them love you, too._ He wonders what his mother and sisters would think about this change of heart.

“Now I’m sure about myself, and I want to make sure about you.”

“Fuck you.” Yukhei’s reply is laced with his pent-up anger. His breathing is uneven, the tears start forming in his eyes. “You have no idea how much I…”

Kunhang understands Yukhei's need to let it all out. He also deserves a slap of reality, after all that happened. He pulls him into a hug and he can feel the droplets of tears in his hair as Yukhei softens up against his body. “I’m sorry.” _I’m sorry I hurt you._

“I thought my soulmate didn't want me.” Yukhei burrows his face deeper into his hair. “I thought they didn’t want me, so I gave up on them.”

“I’m sorry.” _I will always want you._

“And then, you came. You make me so happy and I want to make you happy, too.” Yukhei hugs him tighter. “So, what, if we’re soulmates? It would have been so much easier for us. Even if we're not, people don’t court you for five fucking years if they’re not serious, Kunhang.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Kunhang pats his back softly. He tilts his head up to kiss his temple and whisper directly at his ear. “I’m so sorry, Yukhei.” 

Yukhei takes a step back and wipes his tears away with his palm, this time with a smile on his face. Kunhang mirrors the smile and doesn’t let go of his hand. “You’re gonna have to work for it for the rest of your life.”

And Kunhang doesn’t mind. They have forever to go through, even if forever seems not enough. “Okay, then.” 

They stay like that for a while, staring into each other, sharing space. Yukhei looks beautiful like this, with his glassy eyes illuminated by the early hours of the day, with the same golden skin and honest eyes. Just like his 23-year-old self, Kunhang still wants to spend the rest of his life with him, but now, he knows he can. And he will.

“I love you.” Yukhei plants a kiss on top of his forehead. “Even if you’re the biggest fool I’ve ever known in this world. I love you.”

Kunhang cradles his face with his hands, keeping him close. They share a laugh, the vibration travels through their flushed skin as Yukhei bends down to capture his lips in a kiss. Kunhang welcomes him and everything becomes _Yukhei_ , his scent, his lips, his hands in his waist, and he lets his self control go, marvels at the lightness in his head now that he allows himself to love and be loved in return.

He makes sure Yukhei hears him crystal clear. “I love you too.”

Macau warms up a few degrees as the sun rises in the east, and 25-year-old Wong Kunhang finally feels at peace.

A familiar warmth spreads through his palm, breaking through his reverie. He flips his hand and blinks several times.

_Are you ready?_

Kunhang smiles and takes a deep breath. 

_Yes_ , he writes underneath Yukhei’s handwriting. _I'll see you at the altar._

**Author's Note:**

> "Sometimes, there are times when I believe that everything has an end." is taken from Red Bean - Faye Wong.
> 
> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> twitter: honeycloudcake


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